Habits
by Lasrevinu
Summary: Lame postA La Cart


Disclaimer: I do not own CSI.

Rating: T

Spoilers: Up to _A La Fart _– I mean _Cart_. Save for the Grissom and Sara moments, I've never been so bored.

Summary: Lame post-_A La Cart_.

A/N: Heed the summary. This was written in bursts and stops and was supposed to be sort of angsty but ended up being I don't know what. Oh, and please remember to take part in the Dollars for Sense campaign. I got a paper cut on my tongue licking envelopes, but it was worth it. Yes, it was.

**Habits **

_Do you know what friendship is... it is to be brother and sister; two souls which touch without mingling, two fingers on one hand._

–Victor Hugo, _The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Chapter 13_

As the go-karts buzzed around the curved blacktop, he took her aside to one of the rickety wooden picnic tables that lined the large concrete slab surrounding the track. After gently guiding her to the seat by her good elbow, he sat down across the table and leaned in close, his forearms flush against the rough wood surface. "So…how are you doing?"

Sara smiled brightly, though he could see the light didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'm fine, Nick. A little sore, but that's to be expected."

He lifted his head slightly, watching her from under lidded eyes. The bluff was to be expected. He knew she was going to deny it. Oh, she'd cop to a little physical pain, just to deflect from what she really didn't want to talk about. But he couldn't let this go. Two years ago, he had gone through hell and come out the other side. But not intact. Not fully intact. A piece of his soul was still buried in the earth where he had been used as a pawn in an elaborate revenge meant to torture not only him, but those who cared about him. The warm arms of his parents, the sincere smiles of his friends, soothed some of the pain, but not all. Not all. "Sara, I have been in dangerous situations before…before…" It still hurt to say it, but he would do it for her. "Before I was buried alive. I thought I had come to terms with death. I carry a gun every day for my job. But that didn't prepare me for…waiting for death. For being so…helpless."

"Nick—"

"No, listen, Sara," he interrupted. "Whatever euphoria you may still feel after being rescued – it's going to fade. And when it does, everything you've been through is going to hit you like a ton of bricks and I want you to be prepared for it. You're going to feel used…you're going to want someone to blame. You're going to be curious," he informed her. "You're going to want to know everything. Grissom wouldn't let me see the recording of me in the coffin, so I…I stole the key from his desk a couple of months after I got back to work. I broke into A/V and watched the tape. Hours of footage." He remembered locating the discs and slipping them into one of the hi-tech DVD players that Archie was always using. All he had wanted was a glimpse – a quick taste and then he'd be out of there. Grissom found him four hours later, glued to the screen, tears flowing down already sopping wet cheeks. The older man had simply shut the screen off and handed Nick a handkerchief before exiting the room without a word. "I can sit here and talk 'til I'm blue in the face about what not to do, what to do…but you need to go through it. And I want you to know that when it does hit you, I'm here. Anything you need, Sar."

"Thanks, Nick, but really, I'm—"

"Sara, I can't pee in a public bathroom stall anymore," he told her. "Too enclosed. I have an arsenal of various insecticides because I will freak if I see anything creepy-crawly in my apartment. Seriously. So much Raid that Grissom might fire me if he found out." She let out a short laugh at this, and he smiled back at her, relaxing a little bit as he continued. "My first night home alone – after my parents went back to Austin – I wet the bed." Nick had never admitted that to anyone before. More than the bugs, more than the claustrophobia, the return to his embarrassing childhood problem had gnawed at him the most. "I used to wet the bed when I was younger. From about the age of nine until seventeen."

"Nine?" The scientist in Sara had her furrowing her brows. "It started when you were nine?"

"Yeah, I…something happened to me." He loved Sara dearly, and he wanted to help, but he wasn't quite sure he could cop to the sexual assault he had experienced as a boy. Not yet, anyway. "And I…used to wet the bed. Didn't come in handy during those Boy Scout camping trips, let me tell you," he added in a poor attempt at levity. Sara just looked on, her eyes full of emotion. "Anyway, I grew out of it. And then the second I was home alone – the moment I was that scared little boy again – it happened. Sara," he reached out across the table to take her good hand, "I'm not telling you this to make you feel bad. I'm telling you this so you can know that I got through it, so when it does get bad, you'll know you can get through it, too."

She cleared her throat, pulling back her hand to tuck her haphazard hair behind her ear. "I used to suck my thumb when I was little. When…when my mom and dad would fight – which was a lot – I'd sit in the corner and suck my thumb and read. I didn't even realize I did it until the first grade when I started sucking my thumb during a spelling test. My teacher called me on it in front of everybody." He grimaced, knowing that the young Sara had probably been mortified. "I started to suck my thumb in secret. I stopped in college when a roommate caught me. That was the final straw. But recently…I found myself staring at my thumb." She laughed, and then he soon followed. "I tried to suck it for a few seconds. I had just finished petting the dog, though, and had forgotten to wash my hands, so…it tasted pretty gross. Enough to put me off thumb forever."

"Yeah, Grissom told me you guys had a dog. Einstein, right?"

Sara nodded. "He learned how to sit the first day we got him, so we were like, 'He's a prodigy! Let's call him Einstein!' To this day, the only trick Einstein knows is how to sit. We might've been a little premature when it came to his name," she smiled.

Nick tilted his head to one side. They not only had a dog, but a story to go along with him. So much life had happened between two people he had considered dear friends. For two years, while he thought everyone on the team went home by themselves to stew on cases and suffer alone, they had each other.

"I have nightmares."

Nick blinked and looked up at her.

"I have nightmares," she repeated. "I'm always underwater. I can't get my…my arm out. It's stuck. And there's no air."

Nick swallowed.

"I keep pulling – my arm is about to snap off, it feels like – and then I…I wake up. And I see him."

"Him? Grissom?" he asked, brows raised.

Sara nodded. "I wake up and I see his face." She smiled softly and stared at the table.

"Do you talk about it with him?"

She shook her head. "He's always asleep – he sleeps like a rock. So when I can't sleep, I watch him. I count the pores on his face; I listen to him breathe. He snores." Sara chuckled. "I can't believe I just told you that."

Neither could Nick. It was such an…intimate detail. Not very revealing, just intimate. His boss snored, and he knew that now because his friend – his boss's girlfriend – had just told him.

"Nick, have you ever loved someone more than you love yourself? Just…totally and completely, without any limits whatsoever?"

Nick swallowed. "No," he answered. He didn't even have to think about it. 'No' was the plain and simple truth.

"It's scarier than being stuck under a car in a flash flood. It's scarier than being kidnapped by a serial killer. My soul is owned by another human being," she sighed, looking over to her boyfriend, who was racing Greg and Doctor Robbins around the track like a teenager. "I don't think he really has any idea. But that's the way it is."

"You really love him, don't you?"

"I really do," she said plainly. "To the point where it has become a part of me – that love. I know I'll be okay, Nick," she sighed, drumming her nails on the tabletop. "I'll be okay so long as I wake up to his face."

"And his snoring."

She covered her face with her good hand, groaning as she laughed. "Don't tell him I told you that."

Nick smiled broadly. "I thought he was okay with us knowing."

Sara winced slightly. "There's okay and there's _okay_. He's okay with you knowing we have a dog. I think anything happens in the bedroom -- snoring or otherwise -- is off limits."

"Don't worry, not interested," he laughed. Palms flat on the table, Nick inhaled loudly. "So I think we've got everything covered, huh? Bed-wetting, thumb-sucking, snoring…"

"Pretty much."

"If you ever need anything, Sara…anything. If Grissom's snoring gets too loud and you need him to camp out on my couch, if you guys ever need someone to dogsit…or even if you just need a shoulder to cry on--"

"She's got one."

Nick turned around quickly to see Grissom's form hovering by their picnic table. The younger CSI gaped. "I…"

Grissom's gaze went from Nick to Sara. "You told him I snore?"

Sara's eyes widened. "Um…"

Grissom squinted hard at her before breaking into a grin. "You know, she steals the covers?" he said, turning to Nick once more. "She's the most selfish bed hog in the history of the world. And her feet are always freezing. Now, if you don't mind, I have to go pick up my trophy. I smoked their asses." He wandered off, leaving Nick and Sara alone once more.

Sara shrugged her good shoulder and smiled. "He's always surprising me."

Nick had finally caught his breath. "Yeah…"

"And I don't have cold feet."

THE END


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